


Nine Different Cooks

by Telesilla



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Drabble Sequence, Food, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-31
Updated: 2004-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-05 18:37:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telesilla/pseuds/Telesilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nine drabbles on cooking, one for each actor. This is a companion to  <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/44812">Nine Sleepless Nights</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nine Different Cooks

Give Sean Astin some lettuce, free run of the refrigerator and a lot of room to work, and he'll produce a salad that is a meal in and of itself. These days, naturally, he's very much aware of the irony that has him eating a lot more than the salads he first learned to make to keep from bulking up too much, but most of the time he shrugs it off. Sure it's a little annoying to have a milkshake with his Thai noodle salad or to throw a lot more bacon into the spinach salad, but there it is.

* * *

It takes three or four meals with Bean before people realize that everything he cooks has mushrooms in it. Mushroom omelets for breakfast, grilled portabella sandwiches for lunch, meatless stroganoff for dinner ... always with the mushrooms. He likes them, he explains, so why not eat them in everything? The only people who complain are those who don't like edible fungus, because Bean's an outstanding and inventive cook. His stuffed mushrooms -- the secret ingredient is a hint of ground ginger in the stuffing -- are perennial party favorites and even the pickiest of Hobbits couldn't fault his sautéed mushrooms.

* * *

Regardless of what meal it is, anything Orlando makes leaves everyone yearning for something deep fried or drowning in butter. His bright kitchen houses six different types of steamers and only two kinds of oil. He can be counted on to bring to bring sliced raw vegetables to parties unless the host gets to him in time and tells him to just bring beer. Breakfast usually comes from a blender over which Orli presides like some alchemist, tossing in juices and fruit and strange looking powders, while muttering incantations such as "blend, you bugger!" or "Christ, it's so fucking loud."

* * *

Billy doesn't actually enjoy cooking all that much, seeing it as more of a necessary evil than something he does for fun. He has a small repertoire of things he does well -- several serviceable, everyday meals, one fancy dessert and a couple of nicer dishes. He laughs about it, saying he's the ultimate bachelor, eating beans on toast, or bangers and mash every night until he needs to impress a girl. Here in New Zealand, he'll occasionally make his "nicer dishes" for his mates as well, always giving credit to his Gran for the apple pie with spiced ale.

* * *

Somewhere along the line, Ian is fond of saying, he missed getting that one part of the gay gene that makes every queer man a competent cook. On a good day he can make soup, always provided it comes from a tin. He can boil water for tea, if there's an electric kettle around, but other than that, Ian's a disaster in the kitchen. He's learned that people will quickly forgive his utter lack of culinary talent because he can mix a mean drink. From the best martini you ever had, to a proper Pimm's Cup, Ian knows them all.

* * *

Dom did his time in a real restaurant kitchen and therefore he can not only cook, but he can do it quickly and under just about any circumstances. His skills have been tested at times when small dinners somehow turn into rowdy parties, but Dom has come through every single time. He enjoys cooking immensely, feeling that pride that comes of doing something well, and he's more than happy to share his enjoyment with friends, who often end up in the kitchen listening and watching as Dom talks his way through the preparation, a glass of wine always at hand.

* * *

When Viggo succeeds in the kitchen, he succeeds brilliantly, creating new dishes from whatever ingredients he happens to have on hand. He's a joy to watch as he throws food around with abandon, never measuring anything, and giving the appearance that only a quarter of his attention is directed at what he's doing. The flip side, of course, is that he is capable of culinary disasters on an equally grand scale. All too often his meals are ruined by his habit of making strange substitutions, forgetting things once they're on the stove, or combining ingredients simply for their visual appeal.

* * *

Someone once told John that he had the perfect hands for kneading dough. He didn't listen at the time, but later he ended up helping a friend make bread and found it intensely satisfying. It's such a tactile thing, like working clay only with edible results. Over the years he's gotten very good at it, and branched out to other baked goods -- muffins, tea cakes and pies -- that don't need kneading. But his real love remains bread, and he still does it all the old fashioned way, scorning bread machines the way race car drivers scorn automatic transmissions.

* * *

Elijah's cooking is wonderful, provided you like what he likes for Sunday breakfast. Any other day of the week, breakfast is heavily sugared cereal and equally sweet coffee. His other meals are very basic: sandwiches and things that come in boxes with the spices or sauce powder in an envelope. And so, if called upon to cook -- even if it's not Sunday morning -- he makes Sunday breakfast: bacon, huevos rancheros, and Elijah's Killer French Toast. Although many threats of torture have been leveled at him, he still won't tell anyone what the secret is to the French Toast.

 

_-end-_

**Author's Note:**

> So I was slicing mushrooms for the stroganoff tonight.... I know very little about the cooking abilities of the Fellowship actors; [](http://almostnever.livejournal.com/profile)[**almostnever**](http://almostnever.livejournal.com/) and [](http://anatsuno.livejournal.com/profile)[**anatsuno**](http://anatsuno.livejournal.com/) told me about Dom's time as a sous chef but the rest of it is pure fantasy.


End file.
